A design team of engineers from New Zealand were on the island last week as part of a $5 million dollar energy project funded by the New Zealand government.
Director of Utilities Clinton Chapman said that there is much work to be done in the energy and power generation sector as they work towards meeting the targeted outputs in the current National Strategic Plan 2016-2026.
“Ideally, we are following our Strategic Plan, increasing the renewable components from solar up to 80% by 2025,” said Chapman.
The project will install additional solar farms to boost the solar generation capacity and meet those targets.
“So the things they were looking at during their mission was focused on looking at additional solar sites which will feed into the grind and also storage capacity for our battery system”.
The instability issues affecting the national grid will also be addressed in particular the northern feeder starting from Alofi heading north east to the village of Liku.
“At the same time, they are also looking at some of the grid instability issues that we still in the system and lingering, but these are some of the things that we will address”
At the recent National Summit Clinton Chapman presented on the situation with the government’s key infrastructure assets including Niue Power, Water, Broadcasting Corporation, Telecom Niue, Transport, Civil an Quarry operations.
He told BCN News that the biggest challenge is the funding to upgrade key public infrastructure and utilities in addition to capacity issues but projects like this $5 million Energy Project will go a long way to addressing at least one key sector which is expected to be completed by the end of 2025.
Chapman said that this project will also help Niue Power achieve part of the goal of 60% renewable energy by the end of the current Strategic Plan, 2026.